by BEIJING/HONG KONG, Dec. 12 (Reuters) – People queued outside fever clinics at Chinese hospitals on Monday for COVID-19 checks, a new sign of the rapid spread of symptoms after authorities began an apparatus they used to police residents and restrict movement.
Three years into the pandemic, China is now acting to align itself with a world that has largely reopened to live with COVID, after unprecedented protests that have become a de facto referendum against a “zero-COVID” policy ” advocated by President Xi Jinping.
The protests were the strongest public challenge to Xi’s ten-year presidency and this year coincided with gloomy growth data for China’s $17 trillion economy, the world’s second largest, which were among the worst in almost half a century.
Beijing abandoned mandatory testing ahead of many public activities, curbed quarantine and early Tuesday will have shut down a state-mandated mobile app used to track the travel histories of a population of 1.4 billion.
The app that identified travelers in COVID-affected areas will shut down at midnight on Monday, according to a notice on its official WeChat account.
The app has collected a huge amount of personal and sensitive information, and the data should be deleted in a timely manner, said Liu Xingliang, a researcher at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, quoted by state radio.
State-owned Chinese telecommunications giant China Unicom (0762.HK) said late on Monday that it would be deleting user mobile itinerary data previously used to identify travelers in COVID-affected areas from Tuesday.
When such apps were launched three years ago, critics expressed concern that they could be used for mass surveillance and social control of the population.
In Shanghai, China’s largest city which suffered a two-month lockdown earlier this year, authorities said as of Tuesday none of its districts would be considered high-risk, meaning an end for now to the measures that trapped people in their homes.
Nationwide, authorities continue to recommend mask wearing and vaccinations, particularly for the elderly.
But with little exposure to a disease largely under control until now, China is ill-prepared, analysts say, for a surge in infections that could add pressure on its fragile health care system and shut down businesses.
Lily Li, who works at a toy company in southern Guangzhou’s manufacturing hub, said several employees, as well as supplier and distributor staff, had been infected and were at home in isolation.
“Basically everyone is now simultaneously rushing to buy rapid antigen test kits, but they’ve also somehow given up hope that COVID can be contained,” he said. “We’ve accepted that we’re still going to get COVID at some point.”
In the capital Beijing, some 80 people huddled in the cold outside a fever clinic in the upscale Chaoyang district as ambulances whizzed by.
Visits to such clinics had increased to 22,000 a day, 16 times more than a week earlier, a Chinese government official said on Monday evening.
Reuters has seen similar queues outside clinics in the central city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 first emerged three years ago.
In recent weeks, local cases have trended downward from a late November peak of 40,052, however official data shows. Sunday’s tally of 8,626 was down from 10,597 new cases the day before.
But the figures reflect lowered testing requirements, analysts say, as health experts have warned of an impending surge in infections.
In comments on Monday in state-run Shanghai Securities News, Zhang Wenhong, head of a team of experts at the trading hub, said the current outbreak could peak in a month, though the end of the pandemic could be between three and six months away.
In a WeChat post, Zhang’s team said that despite the surge, the current Omicron strain of the coronavirus has caused no long-term damage, and people should be optimistic.
“We are about to exit the tunnel; air, sun, free travel, everything awaits us,” the post said.
STOCKS, YUAN SAG
Chinese stock markets retreated broadly on Monday and the yuan fell from a nearly three-month high in the previous session as investors feared that the spread of infections could disrupt consumption and production.
But by the same token, demand has increased for shares in Chinese drugmakers and suppliers of masks, antigen tests and funeral services.
“Please protect yourself,” the management of an apartment building in Beijing’s Dongcheng district warned on Sunday, saying nearly all of its staff had been infected.
“Try as hard as you can not to go out…” reads WeChat. “Be the first person to take responsibility for your health, let’s face it together.”
Such messages appear to have hit home with some who say they are reluctant to visit crowded places or dine in restaurants.
That’s why few analysts are expecting a quick and broad-based rebound in spending in the economy, as the glee that greeted sharp easing has been tempered by uncertainty for consumers and businesses.
Yet China is pushing to free up travel domestically, even if overseas travel may take some time.
The number of available domestic flights across China has surpassed 7,400, nearly double from a week ago, flight tracking app VariFlight showed.
New home sales in 16 cities surged last week, in a move partly attributed to curb easing as people venture outside to view homes, the China Index Academy said.
Reporting by Eduardo Baptista, Ryan Woo, Bernard Orr, Sophie Yu in Beijing, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Martin Quin Pollard in Wuhan and Josh Ye and Greg Torode in Hong Kong; Written by John Geddie; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
